Question for those that make all time lists

Regarding my 90 to 100 years ago comment, it's not to denigrate fighters 100 years ago.

I'm sure, 90 to 100 years ago, Fields was one of the best welterweights in history. The talent pool was significantly smaller, after all.

But now there's been another 100 years of welterweights. And there have been a lot more welterweights in the last century who found much greater success at the weight than Fields ever did.

Did Fields win only three title fights, two via 10-round decisions and one by DQ?

A lot of welterweight champs in the last century won more than three title fights. Many beat future middleweight champs. Many became middleweight champs themselves.

And I counted the number of fights Fields had where both he and his opponent actually fought in the welterweight division - which is 141 to 147.

It comes out to something like 16 or 17 fights and he lost two of them. Not 43-3-1.

Of course, if you allow junior middleweight non-title wins and wins over junior welterweights to count for some guys, but then only allow wins in the welterweight division for others .. you're going to be surprised with the results. Because you're tailoring your rules for specific fighters.

If a welterweight comes in two pounds over the limit now, they're likely to call the fight off. When was the last time someone like Keith Thurman came in at 149 and they called it a welterweight fight?

List makers drive me kind of crazy. I'm bowing out.

 

Ultimately, the criteria of the list maker will determine the order of some fighters over others - and I don’t have a problem with that. It’s not like there is a definitive, official list. They’ll always be a degree of subjectivity over these placements and orders, no matter how hard people try to be objective.

As for rating a fight as a welterweight fight where the heaviest fighter weighs a pound over the limit (148), particularly if we’re talking about a fighter who fought when there was no light-middleweight division, it makes sense to me and calling it a middleweight fight is probably misrepresenting it somewhat.

It could complicate things when you’re comparing with fighters from later eras but then there are differences between eras already so you can’t pretend they don’t exist. We still compare welterweights 100 years apart when welterweights today wouldn’t have been in the same weight class as welterweights from earlier eras anyway, so I don’t see it as a problem.

 

You're welcome.

Your challenge about Hearns being at 8 is a fair one. If my only criteria was depth of win resume, he'd rank far lower.

As Jel states in his excellent post, subsequent to yours, criteria is both key & unique to the list maker.

My list excludes predicted outcomes in cross era H2H matches. i.e. whether BJW would beat Felix Trinidad does not factor into my thinking at all, far too many unknown variables & for a multitude of reasons, it's not comparing apples with apples.

If I were to define my criteria in a sentence it would be something like - A combination of career achievements (i.e. quality & depth of win resume) and how good I guess the fighters were relative to the evolution of the era in which they competed - so how dominant they were in their wins &, crucially, who they lost to & how during their prime.

According to my notes Hearns went 29-1 at WW, allowing for slightly over the weight non-title fights. He destroyed a borderline ATG WW Pipino Cuevas in a fight that looked unfair, so far removed from Cuevas's level was Tommy, as well as decent wins over Luis Primera, Randy Shields, Clyde Gray & Angel Espada.

Clearly that win resume isn't the 8th best in WW history, Mayweather won considerably more fights contested at WW over ranked contenders and never lost, I can see a strong argument for ranking Mayweather ahead of Hearns. Hearns was ahead against my #2 WW SRL at the time of the stoppage and I believe Hearns was a more formidable and better WW relative to his era than Mayweather was to his (though I rank Mayweather higher & think he was better p4p), which is why I rank him higher, but I could so easily so them ranked the other way around.

 

I can assure you I did not tailor my criteria for specific fighters, but rather applied very specific criteria consistently. As you're so interested, here's a detailed summary of how I determined which weight division a fight was contested in when compiling my top 20 rankings in each of the original 8 weight divisions:

• No single fight can contribute to a fighters resume at more than 1 weight
• Only fights contested in the weight division that is being ranked contribute to a fighters rating in that division
• The heavier man determines the weight division in which the fight is being contested. A fight between boxers weighing 160lbs & 145lbs is being contested in the MW division. In that instance the weight of the smaller boxer would be taken into account when assessing the "greatness" of the win or the damage to the ranking of the bigger fighter if they lost.
• I make an allowance for slightly over the weight non-title fights. i.e., as we're discussing WW, a non-title fight contested below 150lbs I consider as a WW contest. This is arguable & alternate criteria could be reasonably applied, but a non-title fight between 2 x fighters weighing 149lbs seems more reasonably attributed to WW than MM, imo. I have similar, slightly over the weight cut off points for all the divisions.
• World title fights contribute to a fighters standing in the division the title is being contested in, regardless of the weight of the fighters. i.e. Henry Armstrong made a couple of WW defences where both he & his opponent weighed under 135lbs, I attributed these wins to his WW win resume.
• In-between divisions - As an example, a 130lbs fighter in a SFW world title fight would contribute to their ranking at SFW (I've not done rankings for the in between divisions, but hope to one day), not LW or FW
• So, applying identical criteria consistently, I assigned every single fight contested by all of the fighters I considered for the top 20 rankings in each division to 1-weight division. e.g. According to my notes, Jack Dillon's MW record was 64-9-8 & his LHW record 85-21-12

Applying this criteria & according to my notes Fields went around 43-3-1 in fights I assigned to WW.

You're correct, if someone is going to make lists and they are sad enough (as I clearly am) to take it seriously, determining clear criteria and applying it consistently is key. Others may have alternate criteria to the above that is reasonable, these "rules" just seemed to make the most sense to me.

 

Exactly Jel, great post.

At the very real risk of stating the blindingly obvious, when ranking boxers in the original 8 weight divisions based solely on fights contested in those weight divisions, fighters who fought before the advent of in-between divisions have an advantage over those who competed after, whilst boxers who competed after are the only ones considered when ranking in the in-between weight divisions.